Changes in spatial self-consciousness elicit grid cell-like representation in the entorhinal cortex.

Grid cells in the entorhinal cortex (EC) encode an individual's location in space, integrating both environmental and multisensory bodily cues. Notably, body-derived signals are also primary signals for the sense of self. While studies have demonstrated that continuous application of visuo-tactile bodily stimuli can induce perceptual shifts in self-location, it remains unexplored whether these illusory changes suffice to trigger grid cell-like representation (GCLR) within the EC, and how this compares to GCLR during conventional virtual navigation. To address this, we systematically induced illusory drifts in self-location toward controlled directions using visuo-tactile bodily stimulation, while maintaining the subjects' visual viewpoint fixed (absent conventional virtual navigation). Subsequently, we evaluated the corresponding GCLR in the EC through functional MRI analysis. Our results reveal that illusory changes in perceived self-location (independent of changes in environmental navigation cues) can indeed evoke entorhinal GCLR, correlating in strength with the magnitude of perceived self-location, and characterized by similar grid orientation as during conventional virtual navigation in the same virtual room. These data demonstrate that the same grid-like representation is recruited when navigating based on environmental, mainly visual cues, or when experiencing illusory forward drifts in self-location, driven by perceptual multisensory bodily cues.

Neural correlates of an illusionary sense of agency caused by virtual reality.

Sense of agency (SoA) is the sensation that self-actions lead to ensuing perceptual consequences. The prospective mechanism emphasizes that SoA arises from motor prediction and its comparison with actual action outcomes, while the reconstructive mechanism stresses that SoA emerges from retrospective causal processing about the action outcomes. Consistent with the prospective mechanism, motor planning regions were identified by neuroimaging studies using the temporal binding (TB) effect, a behavioral measure often linked to implicit SoA. Yet, TB also occurs during passive observation of another's action, lending support to the reconstructive mechanism, but its neural correlates remain unexplored. Here, we employed virtual reality (VR) to modulate such observation-based SoA and examined it with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). After manipulating an avatar hand in VR, participants passively observed an avatar's "action" and showed a significant increase in TB. The binding effect was associated with the right angular gyrus and inferior parietal lobule, which are critical nodes for inferential and agency processing. These results suggest that the experience of controlling an avatar may potentiate inferential processing within the right inferior parietal cortex and give rise to the illusionary SoA without voluntary action.

The relationship between self-consciousness and depression in college students: the chain mediating effect of meaning life and self-efficacy, with the moderating effect of social support.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to investigate the impact of self-consciousness on depression of college students, and mainly focus on confirming the mediator role of life meaningful and self-efficacy, as well as the moderator role of social support. METHODS: In the present study, convenient sampling method was adopted, 583 college students were recruited from Harbin city and Wenzhou city in China. All students were assessed using self-assessment scales, including self-consciousness scale, life meaningful scale, self-efficacy scale, social support scale, and self-rating depression scale. Descriptive statistical analysis and correlation analysis, structural equation model analysis were conducted by SPSS 25.0 and M-plus. RESULTS: Results showed that self-consciousness was negatively related to depression, life meaningful and self-efficacy partially mediated the relation between self-consciousness and depression. Moderated mediation analysis further indicated that the relation between self-efficacy and depression were moderated bu social support. Compare with college students who had high social support, depression in those with low social support was more susceptible to the effect of self-efficacy. CONCLUSION: These findings imply that college students with low levels of self-consciousness are more easy to be depressive, enhancing their sense of life meaning and self-efficacy can effectively alleviate depression, and college student with high social support can benefit more from self-efficacy. Therefore we should pay more attention to the mental health problems of low levels self-consciousness college students in university.

Multisensory Integration in Body Representation.

To be aware of and to move one's body, the brain must maintain a coherent representation of the body. While the body and the brain are connected by dense ascending and descending sensory and motor pathways, representation of the body is not hardwired. This is demonstrated by the well-known rubber hand illusion in which a visible fake hand is erroneously felt as one's own hand when it is stroked in synchrony with the viewer's unseen actual hand. Thus, body representation in the brain is not mere maps of tactile and proprioceptive inputs, but a construct resulting from the interpretation and integration of inputs across sensory modalities.

A network analysis of body image concern, interoceptive sensibility, self-consciousness, and self-objectification.

OBJECTIVE: Disrupted interoception has been found in individuals with body image concerns and related psychiatric conditions (i.e., eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorder). However, few studies have explored the role of interoception in the relationship between body image concern and self-objectification (SO). As components of the bodily self, interoception and body image may also contribute to the fostering of self-consciousness. METHODS: The current study estimated the network model of body image concern, adaptive and maladaptive interoceptive sensibility (IS), self-consciousness, and SO, with data from 743 neurotypical adults. The centrality of nodes and the robustness of the network were verified. RESULTS: Our network showed that interoception correlated with certain characteristics of body image concern (BIC) with varying strength and different directions. The most central node described beliefs of BIC, namely, negative evaluation toward appearance. Self-objectification and maladaptive IS presented the highest bridge centrality. Interoception also linked BICs with SO and self-consciousness. CONCLUSION: Findings suggested that SO, adaptive and maladaptive interoception might be the targets of intervention for individuals with BIC, specifically for those with high levels of appearance-related negative self-evaluations.

Beyond peripersonal boundaries: insights from crossmodal interactions.

We experience our self as a body located in space. However, how information about self-location is integrated into multisensory processes underlying the representation of the peripersonal space (PPS), is still unclear. Prior studies showed that the presence of visual information related to oneself modulates the multisensory processes underlying PPS. Here, we used the crossmodal congruency effect (CCE) to test whether this top-down modulation depends on the spatial location of the body-related visual information. Participants responded to tactile events on their bodies while trying to ignore a visual distractor presented on the mirror reflection of their body (Self) either in the peripersonal space (Near) or in the extrapersonal space (Far). We found larger CCE when visual events were presented on the mirror reflection in the peripersonal space, as compared to the extrapersonal space. These results suggest that top-down modulation of the multisensory bodily self is only possible within the PPS.

Neural bases of the bodily self as revealed by electrical brain stimulation: A systematic review.

An increasing amount of recent research has focused on the multisensory and neural bases of the bodily self. This pre-reflective form of self is considered as multifaceted, incorporating phenomenal components, such as self location, body ownership, first-person perspective, agency, and the perceptual body image. Direct electrical brain stimulation (EBS) during presurgical evaluation of epilepsy and brain tumor resection is a unique method to causally relate specific brain areas to the various phenomenal components of the bodily self. We conducted a systematic review of the literature describing altered phenomenal experience of the bodily self evoked by EBS. We included 42 articles and analyzed self reports from 221 patients. Three-dimensional density maps of EBS revealed that stimulation in the middle cingulum, inferior parietal lobule, supplementary motor area, posterior insula, hippocampal complex/amygdala, and precuneus most consistently altered one or several components of the bodily self. In addition, we found that only EBS in the parietal cortex induced disturbances of all five components of the bodily self considered in this review article. These findings inform current neuroscientific models of the bodily self.

The Vestibulocerebellum and the Shattered Self: a Resting-State Functional Connectivity Study in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Its Dissociative Subtype.

The flocculus is a region of the vestibulocerebellum dedicated to the coordination of neck, head, and eye movements for optimal posture, balance, and orienting responses. Despite growing evidence of vestibular and oculomotor impairments in the aftermath of traumatic stress, little is known about the effects of chronic psychological trauma on vestibulocerebellar functioning. Here, we investigated alterations in functional connectivity of the flocculus at rest among individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its dissociative subtype (PTSD + DS) as compared to healthy controls. Forty-four healthy controls, 57 PTSD, and 32 PTSD + DS underwent 6-min resting-state MRI scans. Seed-based functional connectivity analyses using the right and left flocculi as seeds were performed. These analyses revealed that, as compared to controls, PTSD and PTSD + DS showed decreased resting-state functional connectivity of the left flocculus with cortical regions involved in bodily self-consciousness, including the temporo-parietal junction, the supramarginal and angular gyri, and the superior parietal lobule. Moreover, as compared to controls, the PTSD + DS group showed decreased functional connectivity of the left flocculus with the medial prefrontal cortex, the precuneus, and the mid/posterior cingulum, key regions of the default mode network. Critically, when comparing PTSD + DS to PTSD, we observed increased functional connectivity of the right flocculus with the right anterior hippocampus, a region affected frequently by early life trauma. Taken together, our findings point toward the crucial role of the flocculus in the neurocircuitry underlying a coherent and embodied self, which can be compromised in PTSD and PTSD + DS.

Visual perspective, distance, and felt presence of others in dreams.

The peripersonal space, that is, the limited space surrounding the body, involves multisensory coding and representation of the self in space. Previous studies have shown that peripersonal space representation and the visual perspective on the environment can be dramatically altered when neurotypical individuals self-identify with a distant avatar (i.e., in virtual reality) or during clinical conditions (i.e., out-of-body experience, heautoscopy, depersonalization). Despite its role in many cognitive/social functions, the perception of peripersonal space in dreams, and its relationship with the perception of other characters (interpersonal distance in dreams), remain largely uncharted. The present study aimed to explore the visuospatial properties of this space, which is likely to underlie self-location as well as self/other distinction in dreams. 530 healthy volunteers answered a web-based questionnaire to measure their dominant visuo-spatial perspective in dreams, the frequency of recall for felt distances between their dream self and other dream characters, and the dreamers' viewing angle of other dream characters. Most participants reported dream experiences from a first-person perspective (1PP) (82%) compared to a third-person perspective (3PP) (18%). Independent of their dream perspective, participants reported that they generally perceived other dream characters in their close space, that is, at distance of either between 0 and 90 cm, or 90-180 cm, than in further spaces (180-270 cm). Regardless of the perspective (1PP or 3PP), both groups also reported more frequently seeing other dream characters from eye level (0° angle of viewing) than from above (30° and 60°) or below eye level (-30° and -60°). Moreover, the intensity of sensory experiences in dreams, as measured by the Bodily Self-Consciousness in Dreams Questionnaire, was higher in individuals who habitually see other dream characters closer to their personal dream self (i.e., within 0-90 cm and 90-180 cm). These preliminary findings offer a new, phenomenological account of space representation in dreams with regards to the felt presence of others. They might provide insights not only to our understanding of how dreams are formed, but also to the type of neurocomputations involved in self/other distinction.

Did you hear your action? An ecological approach to the senses of ownership and agency.

The Sense of Ownership (SoO) and the Sense of Agency (SoA) are two key components of bodily self-consciousness. In this experiment, we investigated how they are affected by variations in the ecological validity of the moving Rubber Hand Illusion (mRHI) paradigm, which typically include three movement conditions: active congruent, passive congruent, and active incongruent. These conditions were either in a session in which no auditory feedback associated with finger-tapping was eliminated, or in a session in which such a feedback occurred. Since the presence of the auditory feedback more closely corresponds to what individuals experience in daily life when they tap their finger on a surface, sessions with feedback are more ecologically valid, and should thus result in a more marked SoO. Results indicated that in the active movement condition in which the illusion is typically found (congruent), the effect was enhanced when the feedback was present. This advantage emerged on both on objective and subjective measures of SoO. The SoA, on the other hand, is not affected by the auditory feedback.

Consciousness, philosophy, and neuroscience.

The aim of this mini-review paper is to present an overview of work on consciousness from a philosophical perspective, and to argue for the continuing relevance of philosophy in consciousness research. After introducing some major philosophical positions about the relationship between consciousness and matter, we argue that the problem of consciousness that many authors have focused on-the mind-body or mind-brain problem-is only one among several problems of consciousness. We illustrate the idea that the perplexities about consciousness go beyond its relationship with matter by discussing the relationship between consciousness, self-consciousness, and selfhood. This discussion also indicates ways in which philosophy and neuroscience can learn from each other.

Splitting the Unity of Bodily Self: Toward a Comprehensive Review of Phenomenology and Psychopathology of Heautoscopy.

BACKGROUND: Heautoscopy refers to a pathological experience of visual reduplication of one's body with an ambiguous sense of self-location and a disturbing sensation of owning the illusory body. It has been recognized to occur in the course of strikingly diverse psychiatric and neurological disorders, such as schizophrenia, space-occupying lesions, frequently of the temporal or parietal lobes, migraine, epilepsy, and depression. The literature on the subject suffers from numerous conceptual inconsistencies, scarcity of clinical data, and a lack of theoretical integratory framework that could explain the uniqueness of these symptoms. AIMS: In the study, we aimed to review all case reports on heautoscopy we could cull from the literature with an attempt to extract common factors and to foster a theoretical synthesis. METHODS: All medical and psychological databases were rigorously searched, along with reference lists of the preselected articles. First-person reports were classified according to aspects of bodily self-consciousness primarily affected: body ownership, self-location, sense of agency and consequently, collated with their etiological backgrounds. RESULTS: Out of over 140 case studies, a total of only 9 patients with heautoscopy were selected as satisfying functional criteria, carefully distinguishing heautoscopy from other typically conflated full-body anomalies: autoscopy, out-of-body experience, or feeling of presence. Numerous cases turned out to be mislabeling autoscopy or out-of-body experience as heautoscopy. In addition, several problems with existing neuroimaging experiments were identified. CONCLUSION: Phenomenological analysis revealed that from the patients' perspective, heautoscopy resembles a somatesthetic-proprioceptive illusion, rather than a cognitive delusion, and occurs much less frequently than reported. A most peculiar symptom, described by some as a sense of "bilocation," appears to stem from dynamic shifts in self-location and expanded body ownership, rather than an expanded first-person perspective. Although extremely rare in its pure form, heautoscopy gives a unique opportunity to explore the brain limits to the plasticity of bodily boundaries and the origin of the first-person spatial perspective.

Contemplating on the Nature of Selfhood in DoC Patients: Neurophenomenological Perspective.

Medical well-regarded policy recommendations for patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC) are almost exclusively relied on behavioural examination and evaluation of higher-order cognition, and largely disregard the patients' self. This is so because practically establishing the presence of self-awareness or Selfhood is even more challenging than evaluating the presence of consciousness. At the same time, establishing the potential (actual physical possibility) of Selfhood in DoC patients is crucialy important from clinical, ethical, and moral standpoints because Selfhood is the most central and private evidence of being an independent and free agent that unites intention, embodiment, executive functions, attention, general intelligence, emotions and other components within the intra-subjective frame (first-person givenness). The importance of Selfhood is supported further by the observation that rebooting of self-awareness is the first step to recovery after brain damage. It seems that complex experiential Selfhood can be plausibly conceptualized within the Operational Architectonics (OA) of brain-mind functioning and reliably measured by quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) operational synchrony.

Sexuality during pregnancy: attitudes, self-efficacy and self-consciousness.

The study aimed to determine the relationship between sexual self-efficacy and sexual self-consciousness levels and pregnant women's attitudes toward sexuality. The data of this descriptive, cross-sectional, and correlational study were collected from 318 pregnant women between September 2020 and May 2021. A personal information form and the Sexual Self-Efficacy (SSES), Sexual Self-Consciousness (SSCS) Scale, and Attitude toward Sexuality in Pregnancy Scale (AStSdP) were used to collect the data. Six out of ten pregnant women had a positive attitude toward sexuality during pregnancy, and their sexual self-efficacy (26.35 ± 6.71) and sexual self-consciousness (24.75 ± 9.10) levels were moderate. Participants' AStSdP mean score had a moderate positive correlation with the SSES mean score, a low negative low level relationship with the SSCS mean score, and a moderate negative relationship with sexual shyness (p < .05). Risk factors for attitude toward sexuality during pregnancy were SSES total score (Odds Ratio [OR] = .90, 95 percent Confidence Interval [CI] = .86-.95), sexual shyness score (OR = 1.23, 95 percent CI = .901-1.02), and partner training (OR = 3.93, 95 percent CI = 1.58-9.77). Sexual self-consciousness, sexual shyness, and education level of the partner influenced pregnant women's attitudes toward sexuality during pregnancy. Attitudes toward sexuality, sexual self-efficacy, and sexual self-consciousness levels of pregnant women should be determined in prenatal follow-ups.

Freeing the performer's mind: A network analysis of music performance anxiety, negative affect, self-consciousness and mindfulness among music performers.

Music performance anxiety (MPA) is a common damaging phenomenon in musicians' careers. Mindfulness stands as a promising construct to prevent MPA. However, the relationships between mindfulness and MPA are scarcely explored, alongside other relevant attention-based (e.g., self-consciousness) or emotion-based constructs (e.g., negative affect). This study explores the relationships between these constructs. A sample of 151 musicians was assessed to explore the relationships between these constructs. Self-reports of mindfulness, MPA, negative affect, and self-consciousness were applied. We implemented network analysis following a general (second-order) and specific (first-order) framework. Networks showed dispositional mindfulness as negatively associated with negative affect and MPA in both general and facet levels, while mindfulness in past performances was only negatively associated with negative affect. MPA was positively associated with negative affect and self-consciousness. Mindfulness displayed light or no associations with self-consciousness. Therefore, mindfulness seems to be a relevant construct toward MPA. We propose a preliminary model to improve mindfulness research and interventions applied to music performers. We also outline limitations and future directions.

The self and its internal thought: In search for a psychological baseline.

Self-consciousness is neuronally associated with the brain's default mode network as its "neuronal baseline" while, psychologically the self is characterized by different thought modes and dynamics. We here raise the question whether they reflect the "psychological baseline" of the self. We investigate the psychological relationship of the self with thought modes (rumination, reflection) and mind-wandering dynamics (spontaneous, deliberate), as well as with depressive symptomatology. Our findings show a relationship between self-consciousness and i) mind-wandering dynamics, and ii) thought functional modes, in their respective forms. At the same time, self-consciousness is more related to spontaneous mind-wandering than deliberate and to rumination than reflection. Furthermore, iii) rumination acts as a mediator between self-consciousness and spontaneous mind-wandering dynamics; and iv) the relationship between high levels of self-consciousness and depressive symptoms is mediated by ruminative modes and spontaneous mind-wandering dynamics. Together, these findings support the view of the self as "psychological baseline".

Helping Others in Virtual Reality Increases Prosocial Self-understanding Among Adolescents.

Reflection on prosocial experiences may be helpful for adolescents highly attentive to their internal states (i.e., high private self-consciousness) to gain prosocial self-knowledge, yet adolescents with low private self-consciousness may not benefit from it. The current study proposed and examined that engaging in helping behavior would be beneficial for those with low private self-consciousness in self-understanding. Two experimental studies using immersive virtual environment technology were conducted to simulate helping situations. A total of 140 middle school students (n = 59, 47.5% female, Mage = 13.98, SD = 0.89, in Study 1; n = 81, 44.4% female, Mage = 15.31, SD = 1.18, in Study 2) completed the experiments. In both studies, adolescents engaging in helping behaviors identified themselves as more prosocial than those who did not engage in helping behaviors. In Study 2, adolescents' positive prosocial self-concept would increase more through engaging in prosocial behavior than by reflecting on past prosocial experiences. Furthermore, adolescents with high private self-consciousness can gain self-understanding both from self-reflection and engaging in prosocial behavior, whereas adolescents with low private self-consciousness benefit only from engaging in prosocial behavior. The findings suggest the need to consider individual differences and adopt appropriate ways of self-understanding when assisting adolescents' prosocial self-formation.

From statistical regularities in multisensory inputs to peripersonal space representation and body ownership: Insights from a neural network model.

Peripersonal space (PPS), the interface between the self and the environment, is represented by a network of multisensory neurons with visual (or auditory) receptive fields anchored to specific body parts, and tactile receptive fields covering the same body parts. Neurophysiological and behavioural features of hand PPS representation have been previously modelled through a neural network constituted by one multisensory population integrating tactile inputs with visual/auditory external stimuli. Reference frame transformations were not explicitly modelled, as stimuli were encoded in pre-computed hand-centred coordinates. Here we present a novel model, aiming to overcome this limitation by including a proprioceptive population encoding hand position. We confirmed behaviourally the plausibility of the proposed architecture, showing that visuo-proprioceptive information is integrated to enhance tactile processing on the hand. Moreover, the network's connectivity was spontaneously tuned through a Hebbian-like mechanism, under two minimal assumptions. First, the plasticity rule was designed to learn the statistical regularities of visual, proprioceptive and tactile inputs. Second, such statistical regularities were simply those imposed by the body structure. The network learned to integrate proprioceptive and visual stimuli, and to compute their hand-centred coordinates to predict tactile stimulation. Through the same mechanism, the network reproduced behavioural correlates of manipulations implicated in subjective body ownership: the invisible and the rubber hand illusion. We thus propose that PPS representation and body ownership may emerge through a unified neurocomputational process; the integration of multisensory information consistently with a model of the body in the environment, learned from the natural statistics of sensory inputs.

Attachment and Sexual Functioning: Understanding the Mediating Role of Body Image Among LGB and Non-LGB Women.

INTRODUCTION: Despite studies showing that individuals with insecure attachment suffer from poor body image, and that poor body image is a main risk factor for sexual dysfunction, the mediating role of body image between attachment insecurities and sexual functioning has not been assessed. Moreover, differences in body self-consciousness among sexual minority women have not been examined, even though LGB individuals have been found to be more conscious of stigma and the disapproval of others. AIM: To fill this gap, the current study examines the mediating role of body image self-consciousness between insecure attachment and sexual functioning among LGB and non-LGB women. METHODS: The study sample consisted of 1,001 women; of them, 808 defined themselves as heterosexual (80.7%), and 193 (19.3%) identified as LGB. The sample was a convenience sample of women who responded to ads on social media. Participants completed an online questionnaire (via Qualtrics) about their attachment orientation, body-image self-consciousness, and sexual functioning. MAIN OUTCOME: Body image self-consciousness mediated the relationship between insecure attachment and sexual dysfunction among women in general and LGB women in particular. RESULTS: Results indicated that among LGB women, the relationship between attachment and sexual functioning was fully mediated by body image self-consciousness. For non-LGB women, a full model with statistically significant direct and indirect effects was revealed. Both avoidant attachment and anxious attachment were related to body image self-consciousness which was, in turn, related to sexual functioning. A statistically significant direct path from avoidant attachment to sexual functioning was also revealed. CONCLUSION: The study findings contribute to the literature by revealing the mediating role that body image self-consciousness plays between insecure attachment and sexual dysfunction among women in general and LGB women in particular. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: This study provides support for the negative relationship between body image self-consciousness and sexual functioning of women regardless of sexual orientation, and suggests that women affected by body image concerns might be prone to more sexual dysfunction. Therefore, body image self-consciousness should be brought up in sex therapy sessions and future interventions. Clinicians should also be cognizant of differences between LGB and non-LGB women in terms of this effect, taking into account the history of stigma that LGB women may have endured and how this history affects their body image. Gewirtz-Meydan A, Mitchell KJ, Spivak-Lavi Z. Attachment and Sexual Functioning: Understanding the Mediating Role of Body Image Among LGB and Non-LGB Women. J Sex Med 2021;18:1245-1257.

Narcissistic Personality Traits and Sexual Dysfunction in Women: The Role of Body Image Self-Consciousness.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with narcissistic traits, specifically vulnerable ones, are more prone to experiencing concerns related to self-worth and physical appearance and to showing heightened sensitivity to appearance evaluation. Negative body image and body image self-consciousness may, in turn, undermine sexual functioning, especially when apprehension is related to body appearance in sexual contexts. METHODS: We aimed to evaluate the associations between self-reported pathological narcissistic traits, both grandiose and vulnerable, and sexual functioning in a large sample of nonclinical women (N = 656). Furthermore, we tested the mediating role of body image self-consciousness in these associations. OUTCOMES: Sexual functioning was measured through the Female Sexual Function Index. RESULTS: The results highlight that vulnerable narcissistic traits are associated with lower sexual functioning, this association being mediated by higher levels of body image self-consciousness. Conversely, grandiose narcissistic traits are linked to lower body image self-consciousness and, consequently, higher levels of sexual functioning. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Considering the link between body image self-consciousness and sexuality is of utmost importance in clinical practice with women, as well as in promoting positive body appreciation. Clinicians working with individuals presenting with pathological personality traits should consider including an assessment of their sexual functioning. S Pavanello Decaro, M Di Sarno, A Anzani, et al. Narcissistic Personality Traits and Sexual Dysfunction in Women: The Role of Body Image Self-Consciousness. J Sex Med 2021;18:1891-1898.